Murals from this theatre’s days as the Verdi were offered for sale (they were painted on canvas) at a San Francisco antique store called Swallowtail not far from the Alhambra Theatre on Polk St., several years ago. I haven’t been by recently to see if they are still there. The murals depicted Italianate style figurative scenes.

One thing that must be inquired—-is this supposedly the listing for the “later” World Theatre? If so, then some of the above comments actually pertain not to this theater but to the original World Theatre, listed in Cinema Treasures as the VERDI (possibly to avoid confusion with this World), and which was torn down to make way for the mixed-use office building of which this theater was/is a part, and, as noted by Tillmany in the Verdi listing, the World listed here operated for another fifteen years before itself closing. Moreover, this World was known ONLY as the World, never by any other name.

My boyfriend at the time took me to the World in 1966, we just left the Uptown Theatre ( next to winterland ) which was “the home of movies for swinging adults” to see a chinese movie called “The Lighter Shade of Pale” a chinese acid trip loaded with joints the size of cigars. When you stepped inside, it had a lobby that had statues of naked goddesses, the inside was full of chinese people smoking. The auditorium looked like something out of Roman bathhouse, all gold and beautiful statues recessed in the walls. It smelt horrible in there like stale urine.